Taylor Otwell cancelled my account without asking me

https://forge.laravel.com/terms

"If at any time it becomes necessary for Laravel Forge to cancel a customer's service without cause, Laravel Forge will provide 10 days advance notice."

I didnt receive any 10 days advance notice, just the power of "I dont like you, goodbye".

Have you contacted them? This probably isn't the right forum for this...

Taylor contacted me in person to tell me that Forge is not for me and he decided to cancel my account. This is the perfect forum for this as people have to know more about Taylor and Laravel Forge before they trust their servers.

There are two sides to every story, and I highly doubt someone would refuse making money off you unless you were unreasonable.

There is probably a reason you are the only person with this complaint.

I'd love to see that conversation. Why don't you post it, unedited, in it's entirety (except logins), if you are innocent in this and mean ol Taylor just decided to pull the plug on you because "he didn't like your way." Otherwise it's just a "he said, he said" thing and I'd tend to take Taylors side with no actual proof of anything presented. Were YOU being kind, professional and reasonable?

What exactly is it you wanted the Forge Team to do that they came back and said "Forge isn't for you?"

If you really want to us to believe you're some sort of victim here, post the whole conversation and let us judge...since you brought it up with no actual proof other than your partial side of the story.

[ME] I am unable to provision to a server (VMWare Cloud machine). Can I send you SSH details to see it on your own and fix your issues?

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[FORGE] Please elaborate, what issues are you facing? What happens when you try to run the provisioning script on your server?

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[ME] It runs and it executes hundred of commands. Some commands may fail at at the end the provision never finishes and on laravel forge panel it says "provisioning" for ever. I run ubuntu 16.04 fresh no services installed. It would be better to check it for yourself and run the script and see where it fails so you can fix your script? I cant understand in which part it fails.

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[FORGE] If the script fails, can you please share any error messages it outputs?

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[ME] I dont see any error, i just see 1500 different lines. Where should I spot the error?

I run script with > out.txt

in bash you will find that i see after i executed the command and out.txt with the ouput.

Please tell me what's wrong

(files out.txt and bash.txt attached)

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[FORGE] I don't see any errors either but seems like the script didn't finish running on the server, that's why the server isn't provisioned yet. You'll need to check why the script hangs, sometimes it's because server runs out of memory.

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[ME] Server has 2GB RAM, it doesnt run out of memory.

So you dont interest to see it on your own? You dont want to improve your script and make it more compatible ?

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[FORGE] I was able to run the provisioning script on a 1GB server yesterday and all went well, unless you can provide us with a clear error message that we can debug I won't be able to help, custom providers can have their own way of running scripts so it's really hard to identify what's wrong without feedback.

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What you mean "custom" providers? its a clean ubuntu 16.04. Why its provider fault and not your fault? You create a script without taking into account various external factors.

For example, its 100% sure that Forge doesnt run on VPS under OpenVPZ because you changing something on swap file and its not allowed o OpenVPZ. And what is your excuse on that? "Custom provider" ?

I feel you just get the setup script from a online tutorial that works and tested in some major systems and then you have no clue how to administer and fix things and make your system compatible with all possible variations of virtualization technologies (like VMWare and OpenVZ). Fixing one possible collision in my VM may fix for other customers too. But seems you cant understand that.

I am trying to figure out why I am paying for your service. For a custom made script taken from an online tutorial? What is the support for? Explain

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[TAYLOR HIMSELF] George, it sounds like Forge is not for you. I will refund your subscription and cancel your account. Sorry for the trouble.

As you can see I was upset because they didnt want to check the script on my machine. Custom providers and errors in the air.

And this is the second time I have troubles with support. Here on the screenshot you will see that It took 10 days and two emails to have their attention for the obvious: support.

http://take.ms/H7um4

Actually there is no support at all. Forge is just a bunch of pre-made command line scripts (like the ones on Digital Ocean tutorials) and there is absolutely no support of fine tuning to make it compatible in all environments like VMware or OpenVZ.

Taylor is a good developer but not a good system administrator. And of course he doesn't respect his own terms. He didn't even gave me the 10 days notice. As I said the power of "I have the button. I am the god".

http://www.onalert.gr/image/?w=600&h=315&src=/files/Image/NewOnAlert/USA/TRUMP/donald_trump_red_button.jpg

It's not really clear how you are the victim here

"I feel you just get the setup script from a online tutorial that works and tested in some major systems and then you have no clue how to administer and fix things and make your system compatible with all possible variations of virtualization technologies (like VMWare and OpenVZ). Fixing one possible collision in my VM may fix for other customers too. But seems you cant understand that."

Well, you started assuming things and then insulting him, I don't blame him. If you think Forge is just some custom script he grabbed somewhere, you are sorely mistaken.

Why its provider fault and not your fault

You create a script without taking into account various external factors

And what is your excuse on that?

I feel you just get the setup script from a online tutorial that works and tested in some major systems and then you have no clue how to administer and fix things

But seems you cant understand that

am trying to figure out why I am paying for your service. For a custom made script taken from an online tutorial? What is the support for? Explain

By the looks of it you have a very specific issue (with a custom VPS provider) and you failed to provide any valuable information to help them debugging. You expect them to "fix their issues" while only giving them generic and incomplete error messages.

It's hard to determine the tone of a written message accurately, but the quotes I posted above just scream entitlement and it's very easy to see why a customer service rep wouldn't want to deal with you anymore. You're just making assumptions and accusing them of a bunch of things.

It does sound like Forge is not what you're looking for, seeing as you think it's just "a bunch of pre-made command line scripts (like the ones on Digital Ocean tutorials)".

Just because you're paying for a service doesn't mean that you're entitled to express, custom support that will fix all of your issues for you. If you don't like the service and the support, speak with your wallet by unsubscribing instead of being rude to customer support that is just trying to help.

@wilk_randall I never said I am the victim. Read again what I say on the title of this thread. He cancelled my account without asking me (or without my request).

@blueshift9 assuming != insulting. As I a customer I can assume and judge. I don't behaving. Is this violating the terms? If you send an email to paypal and you are upset and you assume things they will terminate your account if you dont behave?

@Demers94 it was an exact copy paste there is nothing more or less. On forge site it says: "Or, you can even provision a VPS on the custom provider of your choice.". I can tell you that among the 3 top used VM virtualizations: KVM, VMWare and OpenVZ it works only to KVM. In my case Its not a custom thing, its VMWare. If you are a developer you should know what VMWare Cloud VMs means.

As long as its a commercial service with "support" icon they have to support. I didn't asked for express custom support. Its the obvious to support what you say "Custom VPS" as long as it runs clean Ubuntu.

Btw, @wilk_randall @blueshift9 @Demers94 I didnt see any comment for the 10 days reply on support request.

OK, here's a comment: You were being an entitled jerk, and you don't deserve 10 days once you start insulting and assuming.

I'm sure Taylor would have helped you until you insulted him.

You must be fun at parties.

@blueshift9 If you read the whole ticket you will see how much times I asked and tried to get support.

I am pretty sure you are the jerk at parties, look at your face LOL

@georgek - You sure act like you're the victim

@wilk_randall well he locked me out without any prior notice. This cause me a problem but finally I am moving. I have plenty of options. For the rest here is a list of Forge Alternatives.

https://serverpilot.io/

https://moss.sh

https://www.ansible.com/

@georgek sounds like you need more server experience, but for now you can FTP a project. For proper setup see http://novate.co.uk/deploy-laravel-5-on-shared-hosting-from-heart-internet/

Laravel has to be setup correctly, otherwise you run into problems. so there is one rule to follow:

• Follow the guide

@jlrdw I have very good server experience but the reason you pay a service like Forge is to have them automate everything for you and work as advertised.

@jlrdw also I dont FTP, its insecure. I always scp. Stop using FTP and more about scp here:

http://www.hypexr.org/linux_scp_help.php

oohhhhh an internet tough guy made fun of my face!

grow up. No wonder he dumped you, it's obvious you have zero idea what you are doing, and aren't too bright. Have a nice day.

@georgek - From what we've seen, it doesn't seem like you have much knowledge in server management. If you're soo experienced in it, why use a tool to do it and not just manage it yourself??

I think taylor possibly thought he was doing you a favour by immediately refunding and not saying you needed to wait 10 days. After all, your server was not provisioned. What was the point of giving you notice. This way you are free to immediately source the personalised concierge service you think your small fee deserves.

@wilk_randall where did you see I dont have server experience? And forge is a service for developers how have knowledge at least basic knowledge of system administration. Forge is not replacing the system administration work, it is automating the server creation (in my case using API). Dont forget that most of tasks still has to be done manually (editing conf files).

The script that provisions the forge service is hosted on their machine and I cannot fix it (and I am not willing to spend hours of fixing for them, this is why I paid = to automatic provision a server, not to fail). They have to fix it so their script will provision the server correctly without hanging to "provision...." for ever.

@georgek - it's just clear from what you have posted.

where did you see I dont have server experience?

[ME] I dont see any error, i just see 1500 different lines. Where should I spot the error?

@Snapey I had more servers with Forge, it just fails on VMware or OpenVZ VPS systems. I never asked for refund, I never asked for any favour. I just asked why I pay 200$ per year.

Forge = Automatic provision of server = 200$/year

If I cannot provision + They dont support WHY should I pay? If they feel they cant or dont want to support, they have to tell: "Sorry we cannot help, Forge is working on specific machines only". After that I had to make my mind, stay or migrate.

On the other hand, if Taylor feels that I insulted him, OK I accept it but I still can't see which term of TOS I have violated plus I cant understand why he didnt respected the 10 days prior notice.

@Snapey because it doesn't have any error. Its just a huge log of 4000 lines without any obvious error and the script runs until the end. Swapspace is the last command.

http://take.ms/H7YEv

Why should I debug their script and give them the solution? This is what you do as a customer? You fix problems and you just email them with hotfixes?

And you won't find the answers of why Taylor did something to your Forge account on this forum. You're not helping your case, but are making yourself look worse with each post. I'd just drop it and move on.

It seems to be like you're just on a witch hunt and you're using this forum as your platform to try to bring some form of social justice.

Quite frankly, I think this thread should be cancelled much like your forge account.

I am pretty sure you are the jerk at parties, look at your face LOL

Sweet irony.

@georgek If I were in your situation, I would send an email again to Taylor again asking why he cancelled the account. Or I would be humbly focusing on giving them the right information they requested without questioning their service/support at the first place.

Why should I debug their script and give them the solution? This is what you do as a customer? You fix problems and you just email them with hotfixes?

That is exactly the mentality of an armchair warrior. Isn't it?